


Faces

by lugubrious



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, set in canon world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 17:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9667523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lugubrious/pseuds/lugubrious
Summary: two people, a whole galaxy, but they just can't seem to stop bumping into one another.





	

**Author's Note:**

> first rebelcaptain fic..please be kind

Jyn Erso meets Cassian Andor for the first time in the hull of a stolen imperial ship. Jyn is so full of jagged pieces and sharp edges, she thrusts them out hoping to pierce Cassian with herself. Hopes to bury some part of her in him, tear him open like he’d done her.

His sharp edges, his jagged pieces are different to hers. She wields them on the offensive. His are quieter, hidden away under layers of a perfectly schooled face and skin thickened by wear. But they meet in the middle now, all him and all her, and rip at each other and bleed.

He comes back anyway.

-

It was a moon so riddled with crime they’d by-passed holo’s and gone instead with paper wanted posters plastered to the walls and buildings. Over a hundred different faces peering out at him with varying degrees of defiance and resignation. None of the wanted criminals looked, to Diruno, particularly vicious. More like they shared a steely determination born of necessity.

He turned his attention from the wall and raised an eyebrow at the drone by his side.

‘Best watch our step.’

'That hardly warrants saying,’ the drone replied. Diruno glanced over his shoulder one last time, eyes falling on the sketched likeness of a young girl with dark hair and eyes to match. Kestrel Dawn. Wanted for numerous accounts of petty theft, aggravated assault, resisting arrest. But the paper was worn, curling at the edges and dusty. Kestrel, if she was smart, had skipped town long ago. Alen Diruno glanced up at his companion.

'Come on,’ he said. 'It’s almost time.’  

-

Kestrel Dawn should have skipped town long ago. She pulled the loose shawl tighter across her throat and looked through the dim light of the cantina to the door. There were several Stormtroopers stationed outside, just visible through the slatted windows. What she really needed was some kind of well-timed diversion that would pull the Stormtroopers inside and give her enough cover to sneak out, hitch a ride off this moon and find somewhere else to settle for a while. She tightened her fingers around her drink and scowled against the scarf material. She’d gotten lazy. Let the freedom get to her head, allowed herself to be caught stealing enough times to draw attention to herself - by no means a meagre feat in a place like this.

She’d even seen a few wanted posters. She stripped one off the side of a cantina over to the west and now it was stuffed in her satchel as a keepsake. But they’d been put up a few standard months ago. Now she could walk around again, as long as her face was covered. She couldn’t, however, slip past three Stormtroopers without being asked to provide some form of identification. And seeing as she had none, that plus her arrest warrant would prove a swift end to her first real taste of freedom in sixteen years.

She took another sip, and the door swung open. A young man walked through the brief square of sunlight and let the door swing shut behind him. Kestrel gave him a cursory once over. Tall, nerf-herder looking. Not the kind to stir up any sort of trouble. If only she was somewhere noisier, like Corellia, where bounty hunters and 'high risk traders’ were common as dirt, and just as frequently underfoot. The people here drank as much as the Corellian’s, but then they went further, passing the brawl stage and ending most nights slumped against one another - unconscious. Kestrel blew her breath out of puffed up cheeks and downed the rest of her drink. Maybe if she drank enough they’d throw her out past the Stormtroopers (who would hardly pay attention to one scrawny drunk) and she could make her escape. but the bartender paid attention to nothing beyond the end of his physical bar - mostly due to the distinct reserved-ness of his customers - and would probably not even notice if one girl secreted away in the corner managed to get drunk out of her mind. The door opened again. Kestrel looked up to see the back of the young man disappearing outside, followed by his bulbous companion. She grunted. He’d been just as useful as she’d expected. She settled back in her chair, eyes fixed on the window. She’d just have to wait and see.

-

'I need a hand.’ Tanith Pontha looked up. An arm was lying in her direct line of vision, the cords at the wrist frayed and showing copper.

'Clever.’ The man in front of her slid a piece of paper across the table.

'These are the measurements. Do you know how long this will take?’ She picked up the paper, reading over the numbers jotted down for her.

'Two days,’ she said after a moment, looking back up at him. For a moment it looked like he was going to call the whole thing off - she couldn’t see his face for the thick scarf wrapped up over his nose but his eyes were familiar. Telltale. The eyes of someone who didn’t want to be caught. Then he leaned forward and nodded.

'Two days,’ he said, glaring at Tanith. 'I’ll be back.’ He stalked away through the town centre, not paying attention to the various other shops on either side of him. Tanith raised an eyebrow behind her welding goggles, watching his retreat. Just because she knew what it was like to be in a hurry didn’t make her any less curious about her impatient customer. She picked up the paper scrap and moved into the shop to find Glek Zamm, the owner of the store and her employer. She’d been working with Zamm for almost a year now and the old aleena was the worst of all the people she could tolerate to be around. But working metal, spending her days surrounded by almost opaque steam and unceasing heat was enough for her to put up with Glek. It was sweaty, intricate work that required all of Tanith’s concentration and left her stumbling to bed without a single thought in the evenings. In short - a perfect set up.

'Hey,’ she yelled, waving the paper in Zamm’s face. 'New project.’

'Lemme see that.’ Zamm snatched the notes out of Tanith’s grip and scanned them, nodding to herself. 'This is closely modelled on them imperial droids,’ she said after a moment. 'Tricky stuff.’

'Tricky for who?’ scoffed Tanith, moving over to where the various metals and materials were stored. 'I’m gonna be doing all the work.’

'Not this time you’re not. Keep your weak little hands out of my way.’

Tanith put the metal down on the table and scowled at Zamm.

'So what am i gonna do?’

'You can start on the bellows and help melt it down but I’ll be doing the shaping.’ Tanith groaned quietly.

'You’re the worst.’

'Go man the booth, ingrate.’

-

Astin Dol was irate. He was supposed to leave this meaningless planet that morning but instead he was stuck for two days all because he’d been stupid enough to overlook just how much the people of the empire hated the empire.

The actual mission had been fine, a scouting mission, he’d collected some intel on the strip mining in the west which the alliance had been curious about for over a month. But now he had to wait two more days to deliver his information, unable to risk a transmission of any kind apart from 'Delay. 48 hrs.’ And all because he’d gotten cocky.

'Frankly I’m amazed it didn’t happen sooner,’ the droid said calmly, gazing at its armless socket. 'The probability of us lasting this long as a duo without some kind of mishap was slim indeed.’

Astin gritted his teeth and said nothing.

'Although,’ the droid continued, 'the chances of us being delayed further increase every time I travel outside so-’

'You’re not leaving the ship until we’re far away from here,’ Astin snapped, folding himself into the captain’s chair.

'Yes. That is smart. Even two days is inconvenient. Although if I’m not with you, what will stop you from being similarly damaged?’

'For starters I’m not an imperial drone,’ Astin muttered darkly. In more firmly controlled parts of the galaxy the imperial colours on the droid proved if not helpful, at the very least unmemorable. In areas populated by rebel families he was an eyesore bordering on a liability. Astin pressed a hand to his temple. The sooner they left the better.

-

Impatient man was back, and as irritable as ever. His scarf firmly in place, all Tanith could see of his face were his eyes and his furrowed brow.

'90 credits,’ she said as soon he stopped in front of the table. It was steep, even she could admit it. Zamm always started high because the higher she went the higher they settled. But the man just sighed heavily before paying in full. Tanith looked at him, eyebrow raised.

'Well?’ he snapped. 'Do you have it?’

'Here.’ She pulled the arm out from under the table and placed it before him. For all the flack she gave Zamm, the old aleena was no slouch and the arm was gleaming - near imperial in quality.

'What’s it for?’ she asked as he picked it up and held it in both hands. He looked up at her and didn’t answer.

'Thank you,’ he said instead. Then he slung the limb into his bag and stalked back through the crowds, vanishing from Tanith’s sight. When she told Zamm later that he paid all ninety credits, she laughed for almost three minutes before promptly closing up shop and going out for drink. Tanith, left to clean up the shop, wondered how much longer she could stretch out her time on planet. Maybe a month more. The twinge of regret that pulled at her was surprising, unwanted. She pushed it down and focused instead on scrubbing the bellows.

-

She was surprisingly inconspicuous, thought Elek Thorn, watching the girl across the street. For a wanted criminal in imperial territory she wound her way through the shops lazily. She had the air of someone who hadn’t drawn unwanted attention to herself in a very long time – except for the arrest warrant and 500 credits on her head. He went through the list again in his head – aggravated assault, forgery of imperial documents, petty theft, resisting arrest… not to mention Liana Hallik’s reputation on the streets as someone who’d do whatever dirty work you needed doing. Not even for a hefty price. She’d taken out an archduke and his guards for a bowl of soup, someone said. She’d stood beside Desric Zayelt while he negotiated with the eastern smugglers and had a gun pressed to his side the entire time. All of these stories essentially boiled down to two things in Elek’s mind.

She was desperate, and she was dangerous.

And she was about to be arrested. That’s what the message had said anyway. About to be arrested and carted off to Wobani, the prison planet. Elek would have winced at the very thought if he hadn’t been informed that they were planning an extraction team to bust her out in a weeks’ time, if everything went to schedule. He was just there to make sure she actually was captured, and that she was where the alliance thought she was. According to Draven, Liana Hallik was a very hard person to find. Why the alliance wanted to find her was, for the moment, outside Elek’s understanding, but that was mere precaution. If he was aware of her importance that information could be extracted from him if he was caught. The rebel alliance worked on a strictly need to know basis and at that moment in time, he didn’t need to know. Stormtroopers were closing in. Thirty cornering the girl down the alleyway Elek was perched above. She’d noticed them, of course she had, and she was tensing as they moved towards her.

Elek began to move towards the array of ledges over the side of the buildings he’d used to climb up in the first place. He descended slowly, casually, all the while his eyes flickering back to Hallik and her many enemies. She was fighting now, as desperate and dangerous as he’d predicted. But reinforcements were arriving; another batch of Stormtroopers and Hallik was slowly being overtaken. Eventually she gave up, her chest rising and dipping rapidly as her hands were cuffed behind her back and one of the Stormtroopers stepped forward.

“Liana Hallik,” they said, 'you are under arrest and are being taken to Wobani to serve out a sentence of ten years-’

That was all Elek needed to hear. He arranged his face into the normal show of discomfort displayed around an arrest and pushed past the now dispersing crowd of Stormtroopers. As he past, he saw Liana lean over and spit onto the ground.

'She’s trouble,’ muttered the droid at his side.

-

She’d been arrested seven times now. Eight if you counted the wrongful arrest back on Tatooine, which she didn’t but an argument could be made in its favour. The only difference was this time getting arrested wasn’t part of the plan, or at least an acceptable detour. This time getting arrested was for her what, in theory, it was for everyone. A dead end.

A young man accompanied by an imperial droid walked past, moving at the speed she’d come to associate with wanting to get away from something without looking like that was your goal. She spat onto the ground, and one of the Stormtroopers struck her across the face. Twenty-one. That was alright. Not too bad considering everything she’d lived through. It didn’t feel like enough (it didn’t feel like anything) but maybe that was because how fractured it had been.

Liana was hoisted onto a small vehicle. She sat between several of her captors. The door closed, the door of the truck, the door to her life, and Liana was cast into intrusive red light. She closed her eyes. She wasn’t finished, soon she would open her eyes and fight again, fight to survive like she’d been taught, but for that moment – Liana Hallik slept.

-

Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor say goodbye kneeling on a beach in Scarif. The sand is warm and soft against bruised skin and there is a breeze. Three days isn’t enough to know someone, not really. Being the people they are they only truly met twice; the rest of the time it was two carefully guarded secrets dancing around one another, teasing, slipping sometimes to reveal an elbow or a curl of hair. But now on the sand and in the breeze there’s no sharp edges, no jagged pieces.

They sit together, Jyn holds Cassian as gently as she knows how and she feels his breath on her neck. He’d done bad things, he said. This is a man who’s killed. A man with blood on his hands.

She stays anyway.


End file.
